Flaw detector carriage guard



Nov- 7, 1933- y .H. c. DRAKE 4 FLAW DETECTOR CARRIAGE GUARD Filed Oct. 29, 950- V LA 'L- -LA;

Q27 3 F 13 I L] L] NVENTOR 6'. I court 6.11

I ATTOR Y atented Nov. 7, 1933 UNHTED WFATES rarest @FFME rnaw na'rac'ron maniacs ermine Harcourt (C. Drake, lliempstead, N. E22, assignor to Sperry Products, inc, Brooklyn, N. Y., a corporation of New York ihis invention relates to rail flaw detectors and particularly to the carriage which carries the brushes and the detector coils, as shown and described in patent application of Mr. Elmer A.

Sperry, Serial No. 298,771, filed August 10, 1928. Said carriage is mounted, one at each side of the car body, in such manner that it is biased outwardly so that the wheels thereof are held in engagement with the rails and are free to swing laterally of the car. The result of this construction has been that it was not desirable to permitthe carriage to remain in its lowered position when the detector passed over a face-point frog, because the leading wheel of the carriage tended to enter the frog and derail the entire carriage. In the operation hitherto, the operator has lifted the carriage to raised or ineffective position when a face-point frog was approached and then lowered it again when the frog had been passed over. This, however, prevented the testing of that portion of the rail immediately adjacent the face-point frog, and occasionally a flaw has occurred in this portion which was not detected by the car.

It is a principal object of my invention, therefore, to provide means which will prevent the leading wheels of the carriage from entering a face-point frog and so permit the carriage to remain in lowered effective position, so that it .may test the entire rail, including that portion immediately adjacent .the face-point frog.

Further objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent in the following detailed description.

In the accompanying drawing,

Fig. 1 is a side elevation of the rail flaw detector carriage suspended from a car body, and showing one form of my invention applied thereto.

Fig. 2 is a view of a portion of Fig. 1 with a modified form of my invention applied thereto.

Fig. 3 is a portion of a view similar to Fig. 1, but disclosing still another modified form of my invention.

Fig. 4 is a detail of the clutch mechanism forming part of the Fig. 3 form of the invention.

Fig. 5 is a portion of a view similar to Fig. 1, but disclosing the combined forms of the invention, as shown in Figs. 1 and 5.

50 Fig. 6 is a plan view showing, in diagrammatic form, the principle involved in the Figs. 1 and 2 forms of the invention.

Referring to Fig. l, I- have herein disclosed the well known type of carriage 10 employed on 55 the Sperry rail iiaw detector car. This carriage is lowered from the car body 11 and comprises a frame 12 which is free to swing laterally as disclosed in the application of W. M. Perry and G. L. Jones, Serial No. 436,822, filed March 1%, 1930, for Automatic rail locator for brushes of fissure detector car and engages the rail by means of a front wheel 13 and a rear wheel 14. The carriage and the wheels are ,biased outwardly into engagement with the rail, either by springs or by canting the wheels. From the it? carriage there is suspended a pick-up or detecting unit 20, consisting of a sled 21in which are supported coils 22, 23 intended to cut the electromagnetic field surrounding the rail, into which current is supplied through brushes 24, 25 carried by said carriage.

Under the conditions set forth in the preceding paragraph, it will be seen that with the carriage in lowered position, on approach to a facepoint frog F (see Fig. 6) the leading wheel could be biased into the side passage and would carry the entire carriage frame with it to derail the brushes and pick-up s1ed. To obviate this possibility and also to avoid the necessity of lifting the "carriage off the tracks every time a face-point frog is met, I provide several expedients, one of which is disclosed in Figs. 1 and 6. In this form I provide at a certain distance back of the front wheel 13 and a similar distance in front of the rear wheel 14, guards or shoes 26, 27 depending from the main carriage frame 10, to which they are fixedly attached. These guards are so positioned that in normal operation they just clear the inside surface of the rail (see Fig. 6), but as soon as there is a tendency for the leading wheel to ride oil into the side passage, the guards immediately contact with the irmer face of the straight portion of the rail to prevent any further outward movement. The leading guard 26 is positioned sufliciently to the rear of the front wheel 13 so that it is still in engagement with the straight portion 30 of the rail when the leading wheel has passed beyond the point of the frog and is again safely in engagement with the straight portion 31 of the rail. Similarly, the rear shoe or guard 27 has passed into engagement with the straight portion 31 of the rail beyond the frog before the rear wheel 14 reaches the frog point, so that there is no danger or the rear wheel entering the frog point. As a modification of the form of the invention which I have just described, I may mount the shoes 26, 2'! in advance and to the rear of the front and rear wheels, respectively, as shown in Fig. 2, to accomplish the same purpose in the .1 0

same manner. It will be understood, of course, that the distance between the front guard and the front wheel is substantially the same as in the Fig. 1 form between the front wheel and the front guard, that is, so that the front guard in the Fig. 2 form is in engagement with the straight portion 31 of the rail beyond the frog point before the front wheel has reached the frog point, and, similarly, the rear wheel has passed the frog pointbefore the rear shoe has left the straight portion 30 of the rail.

As a further modification of my invention, I have disclosed in Fig. 3 a form wherein it is possible to lock the carriage to the car body for the brief interval during which the carriage is to pass over a frog, leaving the carriage free to move laterally under all ordinary conditions. This form of the invention may take the form of fixed arms 40 extending up into the car body 11 through an opening 41 which is large enough to permit all the normal lateral movements of the carriage under ordinary conditions. When, however, a frog is approached, I provide means for locking said arms to the car body and, hence, locking the carriage to the car body to prevent undue outward movement which may result in derailing the carriage at a frog point. For this purpose I may provide means, such as a clamp having movable jaws 42, 43 (see Fig. 4), which may be closed by the action of an electro-magnet 44 attracting its solenoid 45, which is connected to one of the clutch jaws, such as jaw 43. This electro-magnet may be under the control of the operator, so that the circuit 49 thereof may be closed merely by the operator pressing a button so.

It will be apparent that should it be deemed desirable, both forms of the invention herein efore described, that is of fixed arms depending from the carriage as well as the method of clutching the carriage to the car body, may be employed, as disclosed in Fig. 5.

In accordance with the provisions of the patent statutes, I have herein described the principle and operation of my invention, together with the apparatus which I now consider to represent the best embodiment thereof, but I desire to have it understood that the apparatus shown is only illustrative and that the invention can be carried out by other means. Also, while it is designed to use the various features and elements in the combination and relations described, some of these may be altered and others omitted without interfering with the more general results outlined, and the invention extends to such use.

Having described my invention, what I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. In combination with a rail flaw detector comprising a carriage having flanged wheels engaging the rail, and means engageable with said rail for preventing said flanges from entering a face-point frog.

2. In combination with a rail flaw detector comprising a carriage having flanged wheels engaging the rail, means for preventing said flanges from entering a face-point frog, said means comprising guards engageable with said rail.

3. In combination with a rail flaw detector comprising a carriage having flanged wheels engaging the rail, means for preventing said flanges from entering a face-point frog, said means comprising guards fixed to said carriage and engageable with said rail.

4. In combination with a rail flaw detector comprising a carriage having flanged wheels engaging the rail, means for preventing said flanges from entering a face-point frog, said means comprising guards engageable with said rail and spaced from said wheels.

5. In combination with a rail flaw detector comprising a carriage having wheels engaging the rail, means for preventing said wheels from entering a face-point frog, said means comprising guards engageable with said rail and spaced from said wheels a distance such that each guard is in engagement with the straight rail until the respective wheel has passed said frog point.

6. In combination with a rail flaw detector comprising a carriage having front and rear wheels engaging the rail, means for preventing said wheels from entering a face-point frog, said means comprising guards engageable with said rail and spaced ahead and behind said wheels such distances that at least one of said guards has passed beyond said frog point before the front wheels reach said point and said rear wheels have passed beyond said point before at least one other of said guards has reached said point.

HARCOURT C. DRAKE. 

